Elma

I understand the view of those who want it binned but there was significant clamour for it when big decisions were being incorrectly called and it was working well in other sports. On the first point, I don't see it as VAR any more, not in the sense it's being used now. It's simply giving the onfield ref another chance to see the incident so it would be the ref and the ref alone reviewing the footage. If he fails to uphold the team's decision to review then it's lost, like in cricket. It will encourage teams to use it strategically and not waste it frivolously. You could always give two reviews but personally I'd favour one. The only abuse of it I can foresee is teams throwing it at last minute goals against if they haven't already used it.

Agree on that. My take on VAR would fix that. Give each team one review per game that they can use for anything they think is a major mistake (retained if upheld). Automate the offsides so that only really leaves fouls for goals, mistaken identity, and card upgrades/downgrades. The team notifies the 4th official, and the ref goes straight to the screen to review with only tech officials in Stockley Park to show every angle requested. Saves on running a second VAR team of officials every game and the onfield ref will feel under no peer pressure at the monitor to make the call they think is correct. Would also save review time as you wouldn't have that window where the VAR team do an initial assessment.

According to Wiki: "He played 48 out of 51 games in 2021–22, missing only one league game by suspension…" Ha…we'll soon knock that out of him.

Now that is a thing of beauty! I don't have my LEE-7 shirt any longer but when I got the numbers online they didn't have the Asics logo on them, back in the day. Similar font though. I did iron them on myself and surprisingly they stayed on for the life of the shirt, as far as I recall.

Ha ha - I cheated and went for LEE - 7, as per the image. Had VENISON - 2 on the blue away, although that one was much easier without the patch. I don't think the Premier League numbers were available back then, but you could buy close equivalents online and iron them on yourself.

This has always been my favourite style for numbers. That was a classic and stands the test of time in my opinion. Ideally the shirt would have a striped back and they would find some way to provide the numbers already made up onto the patch, although that might be tricky for personalised kits where the name/number combo isn't one of the named squad. When that shirt came out I cut a black square of cloth, added the iron-on numbers that you could buy online, and then stuck the patch onto the shirt (with wundaweb I think). It was all do-it-yourself in those days.

It's actually the same word as English - transfer. Probably just borrowed from English like many Turkish football related words. The "ini" part is two "i" suffixes with a buffer letter as it is specifying that it is the transfer specifically of Jamaal Lascelles. Can be confusing to look Turkish words up in a dictionary for that reason as it's an agglutinating language and you need to know the root. In other news, Beşiktaş are my Turkish team due to that being where I lived, and the fact they play in black and white. If he goes anywhere then personally I'd be happy with that (although I'd rather he stay with us).

Disappointed not to hang on for the point. Sickener. No blame from me though. City are superb and we ran out of legs. On another day Wilson, Murphy and Barnes would have been on to run the channels and relieve the pressure from the 60th minute. The first half showed we can still compete and after Villa we'll have played the top three twice with 17 games to play.

Agree with that but I'd probably go one step further. For me VAR was brought in for clear and obvious errors like mistaken identity etc so along with goal line tech and automated offsides, I'd give each team one VAR call a game which would be lost if not upheld. Call would be made via the 4th official and the onfield ref would go straight to the screen for a second look so no time lost while a remote VAR team assess it. No remote VAR team would also mean no influencing of the ref and showing him their preferred angles - just one tech person on the other end who can show any angles requested. Onfield ref's call is uninfluenced and final. The biggest problem with VAR is definitely offsides though, so automating them would be the simplest change and the Premier League were stupid for not going down that route.

Away at Leeds. Edit: This one - from about 45 secs in? Topically, I've also just noticed that the ref that day was Keith Cooper, Steve Cooper's dad.

I think it was after that game that I started musing about why officials don't have access to some kind of video review system.....

Both the Colo sending off and the Brighton pen were Bobby Madley. He's dreadful and I could never understand why he made it to the Premier League before his brother Andy. Andy is Ok in my opinion. No better or worse than the average ref.

Bad news but it's the only position left where we still had decent cover. We lose Isak, Bruno/Joelinton or Tripper at the moment and we're really up against it.

January worries me. Have a good January and we'll be in a decent position. Only three league games but it's Liverpool (a), Man City (h), Villa (a).

Gutted by that. Always wanted to play Barrow as it's my best mate's team. Guaranteed we'll draw Maidstone now.

Chris sutton thinks we'll win 3-1. Mind you, in the same preview/prediction he suggests we lost to PSG in the week, so he's maybe not the oracle on this.

I'm still trying to get over Liverpool. Had we won last night we'd still have had to beat Milan to guarantee progression. The only difference is we're now relying on Dortmund getting something. A win or draw against Milan will also guarantee third as a consolation. Couldn't fault us last night in the circumstances, so don't feel bad at all really. Just slightly disappointed an otherwise good referee didn't stand up for his original decision.

I don't disagree with VAR in principal, and let's face it, now it's here it's not going away. The implementation of it has been a mess though. Bearing in mind it was introduced to correct glaring errors, I'd take lessons from cricket and make the following changes: 1) No automated VAR or officials in the VAR room - only technical staff to assist the on field ref when reviewing pitch side. 2) Each team has one VAR call per game, retained if upheld but lost if misused. Manager/coach has to alert the 4th official within a reasonable period (say 30 secs?) of the incident to trigger a review. 3) Ref automatically goes straight to the screen for every VAR call to reduce delay (bear in mind there will be fewer VAR calls) and he can get a second view of the incident. 4) All goals are automatically reviewed by the automated offside system they used in the World Cup and which was stupidly (IMHO) voted down in the Premier League. 5) Keep goal line tech as that works a treat (with one famous exception). The above would mean the decision is always with the on field referee, he gets a second chance to review anything contentious without any undue pressure from a contemporary in the VAR studio, goal offsides are reviewed quickly and consistently with no human input/error, and there will be fewer VAR calls/delays per game.

That's still my favourite ever goal - and yes, if I remember correctly it was against Barnsley in the cup.

Played for school and university, originally as a full-back at school, ending up in goal, and then reverting to full-back at university. Played centre-half for Sunday league sides as I got older. Decent passer of a ball and crosser from deep, but chronically slow after having perthes disease as a kid, so was never in danger of playing at a higher level. My eldest brother got as far as Newcastle reserves and England schoolboy caps, and my other brother got to county level.

According to flight radar they took off five mins late, at 14:35 yesterday. https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/t39409#32c83525 EDIT: Apologies. Just seen others have already posted this.

Seems not to have been cat related judging by later posts, but the UK is one of the few countries in the world where you are not allowed to land with an animal in the cabin - it's got to be in the hold. A few airlines have the facility on outbound flights but when we brought out cat from Turkey, we had to fly him to Paris, train to Lille, and then I used the tunnel to drive to Lille (there and back in one day from south-east London) and bring him through that way in the car. They have a pet check facility at Calais for cars coming through the tunnel. Although we did it ourselves there are people offering pet courier services into the UK for this reason, just shuttling backwards and forwards between France and the UK, for pet owners who don't want to put their pet in the hold. EDIT: To be honest that could well be the real reason if he hasn't made the flight. If he's booked two seats without checking UK regs, and just turned up with his cat he wouldn't have been able to board. If he's happy to put Tiddles Botman in the hold and has the right paperwork otherwise, then they might be able to put him on a later flight. Otherwise the cat is staying behind and he'll need to make other arrangements.

If anyone is sick of their phone/radio and wants an excuse to launch it out of the window, Bruce is currently on Talksport 2 chatting to Simon Jordan. Might be an old interview/podcast.

Forest have been in some great positions but the final ball is delayed too long so that the runners either run offside, or they let Villa get back in. So slow decision making in the final third.